Public Affairs: Soap Box - Chris McShane, director, Hillingdon Cresswell

PR Week UK, Friday, 10 June 2011, 12:00am,

Much has written about the way Downing Street works. The most recent attack came in Charles Moore's Telegraph article expressing bewilderment at the way Cameron's No 10 operates. He fears the team in Downing Street has gone too far in rejecting co-ordinating systems established under previous PMs.

The irony of Moore's criticisms will not be lost on Tony Blair or anyone who worked for him at No 10. Moore was one of the legion of media critics who attacked the Blair style of government for anything from spin to outright presidentialism.

However, the Blair structure, by and large, worked. It worked, not because it was Blairite or somehow deviously political, but because the PM, civil servants and advisers worked together for many years developing structures that made a complex government work in a modern media age.

This Government has rightly been keen to encourage decentralisation, but knows unity of message and purpose can only really come from the centre.

All governments face this same dilemma - how to free up good ministers, while protecting yourself from those most likely to cause you trouble. In the end, most successful governments come to the same conclusion. A certain amount of central direction is the right route.